Metalanguage: What is it? Why is it good? What does it look like in practice?
Metalanguage is a "language for talking about language, images, texts, and meaning-making interactions." But what does that really mean?
The New London Group's major goal is to "develop an educationally accessible functional grammar; that is, a metalanguage that describes meaning in various realms." They call for the implementation of a curriculum that provides students with a tool kit that is applicable to a range of areas, rather than just the formal academic English that we have come to know. The point is to teach students what language is through a foundation of grammar in the context of the language that is familiar to them. These familiar languages might not be academic American English -- but they should not be refused grammatical legitimacy as a result. For example, there is the English of India, Eubonics, or Texas as compared to New York City.
The New London Group explains their metalanguage as a toolkit from which students can pick and choose which tools they want to use and when, and then apply it to a diverse range of areas. What this means in practice is, for example, teaching someone grammar in context of the nuances of their own language. First , students would learn about, for example, what "parallelisms" in their first language look like, then using the same language, what "parallelisms" in academic English look like. In this way, they have a baseline off which to base their learning, but the baseline is not subscribing to any sort of hierarchical standard. To explain this concept, the New London Group writes that the metalanguage "is not to impose rules, to set standards of correctness, or to privilege certain discourses to 'empower' students." By breaking down language in respect to what is natural to a student, this can be achieved.
Notes from our conversation:
Writing “awkward” next to a student’s sentence doesn’t provide them with any metalanguage that helps them know WHAT about that sentence is awkward. Curriculum reform to include traditional grammar instruction Goes past “mere literacy” of only having one way to do things. Not for the puprpose of mandating the exact way that language will be used.
How do you teach grammar without teaching those rules? These are the conventions in this register, but there are these other registers that are important. First teach the grammar of their own language, then use the same terms to show how you can transfer to a different register. Connections to ALP:
Teaching students a methodology for breaking down the texts in a systemized method that can be applied across the board of subjects --- think: "brick and mortar" words, content-specific words.
But it needs to go further than that. Shared language so that there’s an ability to talk about language.
Things we pulled from the article that we have yet to implement in our IP...
"These include the textual and the visual, as well as the multimodal relations between the different meaning-making processes that are now so critical in media texts and the texts of electronic multimedia." - as society changes, their tool kit will still be relevant. "A metalanguage also needs to be quite flexible and open ended. Teaching students a fluid method of discourse will better ensure that their success is not ephemeral -- they will better be able to adapt a semiotics-geared metalanguage rather to a changing society than a metalanguage focused on formalism, which is constrained by such change." "Flexibility is critical because the relationship between descriptive and analytical categories and actual events is, by its nature, shifting, provisional, unsure, and relative to the contexts and purposes of analysis."
"The metalanguage we are suggesting for analyzing the Design of meaning with respect to orders of discourse includes the key terms "genres" and "discourses," and a number of related concepts such as voices, styles, and probably others** (Fairclough, 1992a; Kress, 1990; van Leeuwen, 1993)."More informally, we might ask of any Designing, What's the game? and What's the angle?
Metalanguage is a "language for talking about language, images, texts, and meaning-making interactions." But what does that really mean?
The New London Group's major goal is to "develop an educationally accessible functional grammar; that is, a metalanguage that describes meaning in various realms." They call for the implementation of a curriculum that provides students with a tool kit that is applicable to a range of areas, rather than just the formal academic English that we have come to know. The point is to teach students what language is through a foundation of grammar in the context of the language that is familiar to them. These familiar languages might not be academic American English -- but they should not be refused grammatical legitimacy as a result. For example, there is the English of India, Eubonics, or Texas as compared to New York City.
The New London Group explains their metalanguage as a toolkit from which students can pick and choose which tools they want to use and when, and then apply it to a diverse range of areas. What this means in practice is, for example, teaching someone grammar in context of the nuances of their own language. First , students would learn about, for example, what "parallelisms" in their first language look like, then using the same language, what "parallelisms" in academic English look like. In this way, they have a baseline off which to base their learning, but the baseline is not subscribing to any sort of hierarchical standard. To explain this concept, the New London Group writes that the metalanguage "is not to impose rules, to set standards of correctness, or to privilege certain discourses to 'empower' students." By breaking down language in respect to what is natural to a student, this can be achieved.
Notes from our conversation:
Writing “awkward” next to a student’s sentence doesn’t provide them with any metalanguage that helps them know WHAT about that sentence is awkward.
Curriculum reform to include traditional grammar instruction
Goes past “mere literacy” of only having one way to do things. Not for the puprpose of mandating the exact way that language will be used.
How do you teach grammar without teaching those rules?
These are the conventions in this register, but there are these other registers that are important.
First teach the grammar of their own language, then use the same terms to show how you can transfer to a different register.
Connections to ALP:
- Teaching students a methodology for breaking down the texts in a systemized method that can be applied across the board of subjects --- think: "brick and mortar" words, content-specific words.
But it needs to go further than that. Shared language so that there’s an ability to talk about language.Things we pulled from the article that we have yet to implement in our IP...
"These include the textual and the visual, as well as the multimodal relations between the different meaning-making processes that are now so critical in media texts and the texts of electronic multimedia."
- as society changes, their tool kit will still be relevant.
"A metalanguage also needs to be quite flexible and open ended. Teaching students a fluid method of discourse will better ensure that their success is not ephemeral -- they will better be able to adapt a semiotics-geared metalanguage rather to a changing society than a metalanguage focused on formalism, which is constrained by such change."
"Flexibility is critical because the relationship between descriptive and analytical categories and actual events is, by its nature, shifting, provisional, unsure, and relative to the contexts and purposes of analysis."
"The metalanguage we are suggesting for analyzing the Design of meaning with respect to orders of discourse includes the key terms "genres" and "discourses," and a number of related concepts such as voices, styles, and probably others** (Fairclough, 1992a; Kress, 1990; van Leeuwen, 1993)."More informally, we might ask of any Designing, What's the game? and What's the angle?